I suspect you are correct, that allowing more players would improve testing. In particular, I think it cuts out far too many dub ocean players.

Unfortunately, more hands on deck does not mean more work gets done when it comes to 'testing'.

In a previous life, I was the development manager for a CAD system that was probably around the same size as YPP. I agree with a lot of your points, but I still am of the professional opinion that Ice could use more testers. My suggestion of opening it up in a limited way to those can be greeters I don't think would create a flood of new players on ice. The greeter standards ensure at least a minimal level of game experience (unlike the requirement of just subscribing/buying dubs) and for not causing trouble.

As a case in point, I'm trying to test some of the economic changes that are currently being made. However, there really isn't a huge amount of economic activity on Ice, so it is hard to test stuff. I have an IM full of cbs that I probably will never be able to sell, even at a loss. And, yet, I would really like to test the effects of the new labor shop records on a fully functioning and busy IM stall to see just what impact it will have on the clients/servers.
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Algol can not assert the truth of all statements in this post and still be consistent.

Unfortunately I fell asleep when you got on to the stats but I get the general idea of what you're saying.

If the current model is "sufficient", then there is no benefit in encouraging any more people to go there.

First of all, I'd like to think a company like Three Rings would want their new releases to be tested as thoroughly as possible. Sure, the current model being used is sufficient but if more people test new releases, it follows logically that more bugs are picked up- including "that really weird defect which only happens at 4 a.m. on Friday 31st of months with an R in them." Also note that although you think there may not be a benefit to opening Ice (please note that for the reasons above I do not agree there is no benefit) there is no disadvantage to doing this either.

a full-time employee to filter all the "bug reports" which aren't actually bugs but rather people who don't know how to use computers.

Therefore you could limit the Ice Ocean to more experienced groups of players (such as greeters). Also note that to access Ice all you need to do is pay and you're in! There is no quality control as such and therefore you shouldn't assume that everyone on Ice "knows how to use computers." There could be a (hypothetical) greenie player online now filling the developers bug log with fake bug reports because they bought dubs and can't use a computer. I know, this is unlikely but if you think of it along similar lines to "that really weird defect which only happens at 4 a.m. on Friday 31st of months with an R in them" you should get the general idea.

I'm sorry if my comments are very critical but I considered the possibilities before hand and same up with nothing.
----------------------------------------Guppyzra of the Imaginary Ocean.Founder and Coordinator of Fight Circle

Therefore you could limit the Ice Ocean to more experienced groups of players (such as greeters).

Of course you could. Wait, neither of us can :)

I'm not disagreeing with you as to there being no disadvantage, and I definitely agree that "greeter status" is a better qualifier than "current payer", which does in honesty "discriminate" against doubloon ocean players, the majority.

If I personally were in control of managing Ice, I'd shut it down at most weekends, but make it completely open for the final week (including the weekend) before major releases. I'd also have occasional "crazy weeks", where PoE and swabbies and merchants and labour are near limitless, but the database is reset at the end of the week.

Stress-testing and corner-case testing would be far more valuable than "oh, lets try out the new puzzle on Ice oh hahaha you can't cuz yer not a customer".

because it doesn't work and bugs get found out day of the release now a days when it could of been caught on ice if there was more players to test :P
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Randompanzy from Viridian now sailing on Obsidian SO of Lion's RoarTitled Member of PlaceholderThe views on my post are of my own and not my flag.

If I personally were in control of managing Ice, I'd shut it down at most weekends, but make it completely open for the final week (including the weekend) before major releases. I'd also have occasional "crazy weeks", where PoE and swabbies and merchants and labour are near limitless, but the database is reset at the end of the week.

This.

However, instead of resetting the database completely, start everyone off with broad ult stats... and watch them drop, just for kicks.

.
----------------------------------------Tonya+natorClaiming poker ruined the game since 2006

because it doesn't work and bugs get found out day of the release now a days when it could of been caught on ice if there was more players to test :P

Ice has been opened up to everyone for major testing in the past. I think it was opened at least once during either Atlantis or CI tests.
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Pirate tells you, "my, that's one BIG wad o' chewing gum ye have mounted on yer bonce! oO'"Sungod officer chats, "I wonder if anyone's sailing the harpsichord"Pirate tells you, "ZOMG CANDYFLOSS!!! *munches*"

because it doesn't work and bugs get found out day of the release now a days when it could of been caught on ice if there was more players to test :P

Ice has been opened up to everyone for major testing in the past. I think it was opened at least once during either Atlantis or CI tests.

Clarification: During brigand king blockade (and flotilla) testing it was opened to anyone who had payed money to OOO (past subscriptions or doubloon purchases) not EVERYONE. I can't remember what they did during Atlantis, probably the same thing and I wasn't even here for CI testing so yeah...
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-Undisputed Overlord of the Emerald Ocean

I remember this being discussed when Crimson first came out, but since it is pertinent to me now...

Is there any chance that that purchasing 3 months of the golden doubloon club might grant access for at least one calendar month from the date of purchase?
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Pletoo of Sage

I hope someone can help me. I am trying to access ice ocean from my macbook running OS X version 10.9.3. I went to the yppedia page and clicked on the download link for mac. I got a nice window telling me to drag the pix of the puzzle pirates logo into my application folder... that worked just fine. But when I went to open the application "puzzle pirates test" I got an error message saying that puzzle pirates test is damaged and can't be opened. You should move it to trash. When I told a friend about this , they thought it might be because I don't have a subscription, as I normally play on doubloon oceans. I used the option to pay for a month's subscription with doubloons and tried the whole download and open steps again. Same error message. Does anyone know why I am having trouble with this? If you send me steps to fix it , please be VERY detailed. I am older than most in the game and I need it explained the way you would to your grandparent. :)Keeping my fingers crossed that someone can straighten this out.

Dear Three Rings, there is a bug in the Linux installer script. I found this during my Ice installation but it is likely to be in the production installer as well.

The reason I found this bug is because of the filename. I already had a copy of "test-install.bin" in my downloads folder, and I downloaded a fresh copy, making the new copy named "test-install (1).bin".

The problem is that parentheses "(" and ")" are special shell characters, and the script uses a call to the command "eval" without properly escaping arguments.

I guess on a related note, I tried re-installing the test island from scratch to see if that would solve my problem with not being able to see my booty panel. The install script insisted on installing on /home/wayne/@client_name@ for some reason. I spent a whole 2 minutes trying to detangle the install script trying to find out why before I decided that just renaming stuff was easier.
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Algol can not assert the truth of all statements in this post and still be consistent.

Ok, fixed. Thanks to Zingman, I just uninstalled my old ice and installed it over. It should work now.
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Still hanging 10 through life and looking for the endless summmer.